Clarence H. Adamson Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Courtesy Appointments, Biomedical Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, Robotics Institute
Carmel Majidi’s career mission is to discover materials, hardware architectures, and fabrication methods that allow robots and machines to behave like soft biological organisms, and be safe for contact with humans. The aim is to replace the bulky and rigid hardware in existing robots with soft, lightweight, and deformable technologies that match the functionality of natural biological tissue. Currently, his group is focused on filled-elastomer composites and soft microfluidic systems that exhibit unique combinations of mechanical, electrical, and thermal properties and can function as “artificial” skin, nervous tissue, and muscle for soft robotics and wearables. He’s particularly interested in approaches that are practical from a rapid prototyping and robotics implementation perspective. This includes efforts to enable robust mechanical and electrical interfacing between soft-matter systems and conventional microelectronics and hardware.
2007 Ph.D., EECS, University of California, Berkeley
2001 BS, CEE, Cornell University
CMU Engineering
Researchers have developed flexible antennas to better utilize radio waves, increasing wireless connectivity and communication.
Carnegie Bosch Institute
The Carnegie Bosch Institute is pleased to announce the addition of two exceptional postdoctoral researchers to its 2025 fellowship cohort: Kiyn Chin and Hanif Tayarani
CMU Engineering
Superhuman senses aren’t just for superheroes anymore. Carmel Majidi is introducing flexible wearables, inspired by Softbotics, to augment human senses in both the real and virtual world.
CMU Engineering
When faculty and students in the College of Engineering create intellectual property, our culture supports their efforts to form startups.
Mechanical Engineering
Carmel Majidi, Aaron Johnson, and Aja Mia Carter explain the intersection of paleontology, robotics, and artificial intelligence.
CMU Engineering
Carmel Majidi will lead a research thrust in a new multi-institutional collaboration to launch an NSF ERC dedicated to revolutionizing the ability of robots to amplify human labor.
CMU Engineering
Researchers address battery-life concerns with a new material system that can power a pulse ox with bodyheat alone.
Ars Technica
MechE’s Carmel Majidi explains how robots can help with understanding extinct ancient creatures.
Three new professorships were announced in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
PopSci
MechE’s Philip LeDuc and Carmel Majidi have developed a new soft robot inspired by a prehistoric sea creature, which was featured in Popular Science. Pleurocystitids, a precursor to the present-day invertebrates, had tail-like structures that allowed them to move underwater easily.
CMU Engineering
Researchers in the Department of Mechanical Engineering used fossil evidence to engineer a soft robotic replica of pleurocystitids, a marine organism that existed nearly 450 million years ago and is believed to be one of the first echinoderms capable of movement using a muscular stem.
BuiltIn
MechE’s Carmel Majidi talks to BuiltIn about shape-shifting robots. “This technology introduces new capabilities to achieve robotic functions at the small scale in hard-to-reach places,” he says.
